What makes FD lenses cinematic?

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dracore

Active member
What makes the Canon FD lenses cinematic? I'm thinking of getting the 50mm/1.4 but how does it compare with the Pana 20mm?

I read about how the 20mm has more contrast, sharper, etc.. more of a video look than cinematic. Not exactly easy to picture. Are there any direct side-by-side video comparisons available for these two lenses?
 
The FD's look softer. It might work great for you but I shoot action sports so it wasn't what I was looking for. They don't match up well with the Panny lenses either so you have to pick one or the other.
 
actually for DSLR's like the D90 (which ive had FD lenses attached to for video mode) and HDSLR EOS bodies (like the T2i's i own and my GF's 7D) the footage matches 35mm adapter/FD lenses on my XH A1's perfectly in terms of clarity, sharpness, etc.

never seen direct comparisons, but i CAN tell you Nikkors on an EOS for HD work are much sharper, more 'modern' looking whereas FD lenses, although softer, really give a more filmic look to HDSLR work. for stills, i ALWAYS reach for Nikkor primes regardless of the body, but for video i prefer the FD organic look. thats a personal preference however. The FD primes just give a more natural smoothness versus some of my supercrisp Nikkors.

Why not check out a local photog shop and see what they have in the used department, try em out, and see which YOU prefer? opinions are one thing, but what matters here is what looks 'right' to YOU or your clients. i always shoot with Nikkors for clients because they seem to prefer sharpness and clarity; for personal work i like the FD lenses for video; my girlfriend prefers the sharper and more contrasty Nikkors.
 
Yeah, they dont match well at all. Contrast is really intense on the pannys and their much sharper which gives it a weird quality for cinematic work. I've noticed that fd's handle greens differently, almost more of a vintage quality to them, and their softer in a way that cant be replicated with filters/grease/effects, which smooths out alot of the digital artifacts brought out by the linear ordering of pixels.
 
Nothing, it's just a good obsolete manual focus still lens. Track a year back Contax Zeiss was all the rage for the exact same reasons. I know, I was one of them.
 
Im a bit confused, do you use fd lenses on your eos rig? if so, maybe the extra glass in the adapter helps to soften the image and make it more dof adapter looking?

Zissou said:
actually for DSLR's like the D90 (which ive had FD lenses attached to for video mode) and HDSLR EOS bodies (like the T2i's i own and my GF's 7D) the footage matches 35mm adapter/FD lenses on my XH A1's perfectly in terms of clarity, sharpness, etc.

never seen direct comparisons, but i CAN tell you Nikkors on an EOS for HD work are much sharper, more 'modern' looking whereas FD lenses, although softer, really give a more filmic look to HDSLR work. for stills, i ALWAYS reach for Nikkor primes regardless of the body, but for video i prefer the FD organic look. thats a personal preference however. The FD primes just give a more natural smoothness versus some of my supercrisp Nikkors.

Why not check out a local photog shop and see what they have in the used department, try em out, and see which YOU prefer? opinions are one thing, but what matters here is what looks 'right' to YOU or your clients. i always shoot with Nikkors for clients because they seem to prefer sharpness and clarity; for personal work i like the FD lenses for video; my girlfriend prefers the sharper and more contrasty Nikkors.
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I'm +1 with Zissou. Canon FD is really nice for film look. 50mm 1.4 is cheap. But 15mm 2.8, 24mm 2.0, 35mm 2.0, 85mm 1.8 are not cheap. But I'd get them if I can buy'em all. Good investment. You know... the world stopped making them. If this is only the beginning of mirrorless revolution, the price of FD lenses can go up much higher.

I'm using Nikkor lenses and M43 lenses with diffusion filter. Not a perfect match, but good enough. Just do more cool post-processing tricks. Hehe. I can use M43 lenses for photos, too. I don't care what some say about M43 lenses. 7-14, 20, 14-140 are all nice lenses.
 
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The Canon FD 35mm f/2 and 85mm f/1.8 aren't cheap but they aren't expensive either. I bought 2 35mm's for around $150 ea. and my 85mm cost me under 100. All on eBay.

The 35mm has been the lens that stays on my GF13 most of the time, but I just got a Vivitar FD-mount 28mm f/2.8 Close Focus which, surprisingly, is threatening to displace it. Such a great lens for the Lumix and so cheap, you can pick them up for well under 100.
 
My post from another thread about matching FD lenses to the 20mm f/1.7:

"I don't know what everyone is on about with soft as butter lenses giving a more "filmic" [or "cinematic] look. Every film I've ever seen has had tack sharp image in areas of critical focus. If you are going for a 1970s home movie look then by all means use soft "vintage" glass. Sometimes "vintage" just means old. For some companies "vintage" marks a time when optical quality and build quality were priorities, not simply making things cheap and easy to sell. Nikon is one such company, and their vintage glass exceeds all but their highest end glass in optical quality, sharpness, build quality, and general performance. Canon is not. Their older glass is inferior to most of their newer glass in all respects except build quality, across the board (low end to high) and it's not because Canon's modern glass is better than Nikon's, it's just that their old glass is so much worse, in all respects except maybe build quality."

It's not cinematic when critical focus isn't sharp, it's not cinematic to shoot with your lenses wide open while never being able to hit your focus points, and it's not cinematic to have softness, aberrations, and other optical defects (and make no mistake, they are defects) in a film. Cinematic isn't some flat so called "organic" hell with no sharpness and no contrast. It is a look that some people like, but it's not cinematic, because it doesn't look like MOST of the films you'd see at a cinema, now or anytime between now and 50 years ago. I'd say the closest you'd get is the contrast and colors of some of these older lenses are similar to films of that era, but not the softness, etc. Some of my favorite old films have tons of contrast and really sharp focus.

You can use these techniques creatively and do cool films with them, but don't call it "cinematic" just because YOU like it, or are forcing yourself to like it to justify a past purchase. Just say: I like these lenses because they make an image like this....don't call that image cinematic if it's not.

In any case, I like contrast, I like sharpness, I like well-pulled critical focus with no random drifts, and I like a cleanly resolved image with no chromatic aberration, edge-softness (I do have a soft-spot for vignetting though, mainly because it adds contrast). I don't find this look digital, or artificial, in fact it's what films look like to me when I go see them in the cinema.

Anyway, I am sure there is some contradictory stuff in there and fill free to call me out on it, but don't if this last clarifying point makes sense:

When shooting a project with the primary visual objective of achieving a look found in contemporary mainstream cinema, lenses should be selected first and foremost on a basis of their optical quality: specifically their sharpness in areas of critical focus, and lack of optical defects such as vignetting, edge softness, chromatic aberration, etc.
 
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I don't find any of my old Canon FD and FL lenses "soft" per se. If anything, they're all very sharp and highly detailed. They may not have quite the contrast of the 20mm pancake but then what does? They are definitely not "soft as butter", not to my eyes at least.

You sound like a Nikonian and that's fine, Nikon glass is excellent, but in the end it's just one look among many. Canon glass doesn't have to be soft-focus so Nikon can be sharp.
 
Canon FDs work great on GH1 because we are trying to use a still camera to take HD video. It's like a box of chocolate. Pleasant surprise in this case. Missing focus is just fine. Human analog noise. If I were so much concerned about contrast and sharpness, I would've bought Nikon 7000D and never looked back.

See this. Somehow he got it good sharp. http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?215412-GH13-Canon-FD-50mm-f1.4&highlight=

GH2's HDMI output will make it easier to focus.

I have M43, Canon FD, and Nikkor Ai-s, and C-mount cctv lenses and I like'em all.
 
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shaveblog said:
The Canon FD 35mm f/2 and 85mm f/1.8 aren't cheap but they aren't expensive either. I bought 2 35mm's for around $150 ea. and my 85mm cost me under 100. All on eBay.

The 35mm has been the lens that stays on my GF13 most of the time, but I just got a Vivitar FD-mount 28mm f/2.8 Close Focus which, surprisingly, is threatening to displace it. Such a great lens for the Lumix and so cheap, you can pick them up for well under 100.
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Can I buy 35mm 2.0 at $150 + shipping cost from you? :)
 
I like good EF Canon glass but a lot of the FD stuff is somewhat lacking, some of it is quite good though, just much more inconsistently. In fact I find modern Nikon glass to be much more dreamy (though still sharp) and modern canon glass to be more "hyper-real" (beyond real.) Anyway, my point is people seem to be advocating lenses that are soft, which I disagree with.
 
Great still lenses are not necessarily great video lenses. With high Mbps, some vintage lenses can yield plenty of details. Definitely less moire. As bitrate goes up, it will look better.

Without lenses like Canon FDs, GH1 would have been much less popular.

But let's agree to disagree. Different strokes for different people. What I like most about GH1 community is varieties of lenses people use. That's something that my canonikon friends can't fathom.
 
Ben_B said:
I like good EF Canon glass but a lot of the FD stuff is somewhat lacking, some of it is quite good though, just much more inconsistently. In fact I find modern Nikon glass to be much more dreamy (though still sharp) and modern canon glass to be more "hyper-real" (beyond real.) Anyway, my point is people seem to be advocating lenses that are soft, which I disagree with.
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I've been 'wondering' about this too... There was another thread on this sort of topic, and I of course responded with 'why would someone want a 'less sharp' image from a lens'. Unless someone is looking for a specific 'look', and perhaps a specific lens that had such... but for most work, I've tended to 'sharp'...

If something needs to be 'soft' then use a post production filter... and adjust to taste...

I'm also wondering if much of this is not really 'visible' on internet/computer dispay directed material... I've said this before, for many of the 'examples' on the Zacuto Shootout, I really could not see much difference between 'film' and the various digital camers, except for specific examples of 'latitude' where one could see the light bulb filament in the 'film film' case, and the digital cases were more blocked up...

But that was not a 'lens' issue that's an issue with the sensor's response...

I think one could even simulate chrmatic aberation if one wanted to, post-production... if that was what one was trying to emulate from 'ancient' lenses...

As it is, I always thought the Canon lenses for the last 20 years or so, were 'pretty damn sharp'... the Wife who is even more of a 'sharp' fetish, would sometimes
wish she could jump the Nikon ship on occasion...

Perhaps the FD series in question is an older generation, and not so 'sharp' as the more modern Canon lenses...

Speaking of the Wife and her fetish on sharpness... one of the constant complaints she had during the transition from 35mm film film, and 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 film film, was the apparent 'softness' of digital images.
But that was cleared up with a bit of unsharpmasking... but still she expressed irritation on having to 'do something' to sharpen up the image to her satisfaction...
 
stonebat said:
Great still lenses are not necessarily great video lenses. With high Mbps, some vintage lenses can yield plenty of details. Definitely less moire. As bitrate goes up, it will look better.
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What bugs me though is that people (not you) think the M4/3rds lenses aren't great video lenses. The two I use, the 20mm f/1.7 and the 14-140mm, are great video lenses. The focus rings are well dampened which is good for video (although I miss hard stops...we'll have focus bar on GH2 though which IMO is better than hard stops because I don't have to see the lens I can just use this like a follow focus.) They're both super sharp and give a really great image.
 
I don't remember anyone on this forum saying m43 lenses aren't good for video. What I have read, and said myself, is that some of us prefer the look of specific adapted lenses when shooting video. You seem to see things in a rather black and white way -- preferring the way video looks when shot with a Canon manual focus lens doesn't mean anyone thinks the 20mm pancake sucks for video. I prefer salami to bologna but that doesn't mean I hate bologna. I love bologna. Just not as much as salami. Pastrami I like better than either of them.
 
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